


Swept Away

by LaLionne (otayuriistheliteralbest)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Injury Recovery, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform, Sheithlentines 2018, Shipwrecks, Transformation, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 10:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otayuriistheliteralbest/pseuds/LaLionne
Summary: Keith was royally screwed.No food. No water, besides the vast ocean. Mocking him.He heard a splashing sound like an injured animal in the shallows of the water and perked up. Maybe he’d be able to eat whatever it was... Keith unsheathed his sword, which had luckily been the only one of his possessions not swept out to sea, and crept around the bend in a cluster of rocks to find....“What are you?”





	Swept Away

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day to you all, but especially to the lovely @nonstop-nerd, who requested a mermaid AU! I hope you like it! <3
> 
> Thank you to francowitch for your everlasting support and edits, and for almost always coming up with a better title than me! xD

Keith trudged through the sand, kicking broken debris from the shipwreck as he went. There was nothing left, nothing but him and this damned strip of land in the middle of the ocean. There were a few measly trees to provide protection from the sun, but otherwise? Keith was royally screwed.

No food. No water, besides the vast ocean. Mocking him.

He heard a splashing sound like an injured animal in the shallows of the water and perked up. Maybe he’d be able to eat whatever it was... Keith unsheathed his sword, which had luckily been the only one of his possessions not swept out to sea, and crept around the bend in a cluster of rocks to find....

“What are you?”

Before the stranded sailor was probably the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Keith could only guess that the creature was male, because everything from the waist up was human-like, with sharp muscles that were clearly in constant use. The creature’s face had wide, offset eyes almost like a shark’s and a striped black and white ridge extended from his forehead down its neck. What interested Keith the most was the creature’s arms - or rather, arm, because it was missing one. A stump stuck out at an awkward angle from where the creature’s right arm should be.

The moment he spotted Keith, the creature jerked away from him, even though the man was yards away. He made a garbled sort of noise, struggling to pull himself far enough into the shallows to get away from Keith.

“Wait!” Keith said, sheathing his sword. He held out his empty hands placatingly, trying to show the creature that he meant no harm. “Please, let me help you.”

Wide eyes stared back at Keith, who could now see that the creature was tangled up in ropes that must have come from the shipwreck. With no legs and only one arm, there was no way that he could free himself from the tangled mess.

The creature made another noise that Keith couldn’t understand, pain flashing in his eyes.

“Do you understand me?” he asked, inching forward carefully.

His eyelids fluttered in a rapid motion that Keith  _ thought _ was blinking, tilted his head, and said in a scratchy voice, “Won’t hurt?”

Keith blanched at the words. “No, no, I won’t hurt you. I want to help. My name is Keith.”

Eyelids fluttered once more, and the creature looked down at the sand at Keith’s feet, then back up to his face. “Shiro.”

Keith let out the breath he’d been holding and tried to smile, running a hand through his bedraggled hair. He closed the gap between him and Shiro, crouching down next to him.

“Shiro, can I help you get out of these ropes?” Keith asked him. Shiro tilted his head at the young sailor and nodded. He still seemed tentative to accept Keith’s help.

Keith reached out to Shiro to touch the ropes and felt him jerk slightly before relaxing into the touch.

The sailor was...puzzled. He had thought that these ropes had just gotten loose from the shipwreck and Shiro had had the unfortunate luck to get tangled up in them, but now that he was level with him, Keith could see the knots all along the cords.  _ Sailor’s  _ knots.

“This wasn’t because of the shipwreck. Was it?” He asked, looking up into Shiro’s eyes.

It took a few moments for him to formulate the words he wanted to say.

“Stolen from water. Two-legs men, they take me. Tied up in big boat, long time,” Shiro finally said. There was so much pain in those eyes, Keith could feel his heart wrench at the vision of him.

“Tied up in  _ our _ ship? How did I never know, never see…” Keith was furious but tried to hide his anger as he worked on the knots. He would just cut them, if he had a dagger, but he got the feeling that if he pulled out his sword Shiro would do everything he could to get away from him.

“Secret place,” Shiro replied. “No… what word? No light. Small.”

The ropes came apart bit by bit until Keith was finally able to fling them away altogether. Shiro stretched out his whole arm and what was left of his other arm, twisting himself to relieve the tension of being tied up that way for who knows how long. He grimaced as he shifted, and Keith could see why. The ropes had pulled tight against his tail, and there was a pattern of bruising and welts that matched where the ropes had been.

“Can’t swim. Not yet,” Shiro replied to the question in Keith’s eyes.

“Then I’ll just have to make camp here,” Keith replied, glancing around the cove to assess their surroundings. “I want to make sure you stay safe.”

Keith hauled sections of the shipwreck to that section of the beach, working until well after sunset until he had created some kind of serviceable shelter for himself and Shiro, should he wish to join Keith. He wasn’t sure how long it would take for Shiro to be healed enough to swim again.

The pair spent their days conversing within the confines of their shelter, and Shiro’s speech improved rapidly. Keith told him his life story - as an orphan growing up with the knowledge that his father had been a sailor and an explorer, fighting to get the chance to become a sailor himself and see the wide world like his father had. The voyage that had resulted in their shipwreck had marked his sixth such journey out to sea, and the storm had snuck up on them without warning. They had weathered many a storm before, but none so fierce as the one that had seen the pair of them washed up on the deserted island.

When the pair weren’t talking, Keith took to exploring the small island or fishing in the shallows with varying success. Shiro ate the fish he caught raw, guzzling it down in a few quick bites. It made Keith a little nauseous to watch, and he chose instead to keep an eye on his own fish, cooking over the small campfire he managed to light.

One morning, Keith awoke to find Shiro taking careful laps around their little cove. Tentative, like he thought he would injure himself once more if he went too fast. That was when Keith knew their time together was running out.

“It is time,” Shiro said to him a few days later. Keith was poking at the fire, stoking it back to a crackling flame. Keith glanced up at Shiro.

“What about me?” He said, unthinking. He pulled his legs up to his chest, hugging them. Keith wasn’t like Shiro, he couldn’t just swim off to safety. He was stuck on this island.

“I can take you with me,” Shiro said hesitantly. “If you want. I have not shown you all that I can do.”

Shiro reached his hand out to Keith above the flames. “Do you wish to join me? There is much that you have not seen of the world. You can become like me.”

Keith’s eyes widened.

“Do it,” he said, reaching a hand out to clasp Shiro’s. Their eyes glowed purple as a flash of light surrounded them, raising the pair up into the air above the beach. Keith could feel his body shifting, changing. The purple light crackled as they slowly settled back down to the sand.

Keith stared down in awe at the tail that had replaced his legs. He swished it experimentally, feeling the power in its movement. Keith wondered what it would be like to swim in the ocean. He raised his arms in front of his face; they were now covered in scales in purples and reds, and webbing stretched between his fingers, which were longer and thinner than they had been before. Keith ran his tongue along sharpened teeth and looked up at Shiro, grinning.

“Let’s go see the world.”


End file.
